


Fear of Death

by RoleplayFanfics



Series: Star Wars: Ends and Beginnings [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Armitage Hux (Comics), Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars: Kylo Ren (Comics)
Genre: Armitage Hux surviving, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Hux surviving, M/M, Movie spoiler alerts, Spoilers, The Rise of Skywalker spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21971995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoleplayFanfics/pseuds/RoleplayFanfics
Summary: (THE RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILERS)“What took you so long?” Ren voiced at last, his voice far more menacing than intended, because of the mask.It brought Hux out of his thoughts, pushed him a little out of order again, and Ren enjoyed being the cause of that. Like this, he could toy with the other, just a bit.“Pardon?” the other asked, almost irritably, but only as much as he believed himself to be able to get away with.Not aware that he was smiling, Ren repeated himself; “what took you so long?”“I don’t have the faintest clue what you are getting a-..”“To betray me.”
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Series: Star Wars: Ends and Beginnings [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1584718
Comments: 10
Kudos: 271





	Fear of Death

**Author's Note:**

> After coming back from the second time watching the new Star Wars movie, I felt inspired enough to write a quick story of what would happen if the blaster shot never killed Hux, and ponder a bit on why Kylo Ren has kept him alive thus far, in the first place, when Hux so clearly wants to betray him, and Ren would know that fact, (referring to Hux's official comic oneshot). 
> 
> I hope you will enjoy it, I̶ ̶m̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶w̶r̶i̶t̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶e̶q̶u̶e̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶c̶e̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶t̶-̶m̶o̶v̶i̶e̶.̶ Nevermind, there will be at least two sequels, one is already up. - Nathan

In hindsight, Ren really would have to suppose that he only wondered what took the man so long.  
  
On his way to the medical bay of the Star Destroyer, of his command ship, Supreme Leader Ren was an intimidating presence, striding forward with purpose, with strange clarity. He wasn’t just imagining that he was intimidating, Ren could feel that he was intimidating every passerby, unfortunate enough to end up in his path.  
  
It wasn’t exhausting anymore, not like it had been in the beginning, to keep track of hundreds of minds at once, that was.  
  
Perhaps, if he truly had to go as far as admitting it, he was a bit impressed with Generals who surveyed and governed hundreds to thousands of people, without even knowing what they were thinking.  
  
He felt neurotic, he was aware that if he didn’t survey everything, didn’t survey _everyone_ , he would be in a lot more danger than anyone around him would be. Now that he was his own Master, there simply was no excuse to not have everything under control. Ren was never good at control, he knew that much, wasn’t able to deny his lacking qualities, his failures, but he felt like he was, albeit in desperation, holding on decently well for his plan to succeed.  
  
Ren found the man he was looking for somewhat ungracefully sprawled out on a bed, looking paler than usual, so much so that his freckles were visible from a distance, or, well, perhaps Ren just knew the position of every single freckle at this point.  
  
Hux had always made control look easy, Ren didn’t know how he had managed. Perhaps he even felt like he was taking after the man, especially with the uncomfortable, distressful, and very much neurotic attention he kept on every single person of importance in his own rule.  
  
At least now, the man didn’t look to be in control. His hair was a complete disarray, not that it was the first time Ren saw such a sight, it was just, always sort of, well, maybe it felt so wrong to him that Hux was in disarray he hadn’t caused himself, or perhaps caused by Snoke when he was alive. 

Nevermind all that.  
  
He sat down on the edge of the bed, after having made sure that he would remain undisturbed. He needn’t say that in person to guards, he could just speak in their minds, which frightened them enough to remind them that he, despite usually being younger than them, and always having been someone they likely found strange and distasteful, should be respected. Or else.  
  
He reached out with the Force, reached out around him, and indeed there were none but medical droids in the vicinity. Then, he took a deep breath, said breath coming out raspy and mechanical through his helmet. 

He supposed he really was doing this, huh. Everything was falling apart as it was, anyway, he might as well. 

He might as well admit a few things to himself that he wouldn’t have dared previously, terrified of the implied weakness.  
  
Ren was fairly certain that the young General knew that he was… frailer than he seemed to most people. Worst of all, he suspected the man had known ever since they met. Perhaps that was only fair, since Ren had known the man wasn’t orderly, or naturally in control, ever since they first met. The Force had showed him the man’s nature, even as he had been a child yet, taken in by the Order after, everything-...  
  
He drew a shaky breath, one which only came out menacingly and harshly through the filter in the mask, making it seem all the less disturbed. He _remembered_ the first time he had met Hux, the first time he had seen the man. It had been so long that he reasonably shouldn’t remember it very well, but he did, disturbingly enough. 

He had heard him, heard his mind, before he saw him, and through most of the years to come, once the two of them got too acquainted with one another for either of their comfort, he would describe it as a hurricane, somewhere on the inside. The closer he had been to the man, the calmer it had been, like he had been standing in the silent eye of said hurricane, and he had, against his own will sort of liked it, sort of liked knowing that he was the only one seeing and hearing the disarray in an otherwise so pristine man. There weren’t a lot of things Ren liked, himself least of all; his former Master had made sure for him to constantly feel torn and hurting, probably in an attempt to teach him to control it. 

It felt wrong to admit that Hux had sort of made him hold on. They were approximately the same age, give or take five years, he thought at least, in a world of old experienced people in command, which would inherently respect neither of them. Back before the Starkiller Base was ruined, back when everything was still in motion but not quite there yet, he had been able to afford being curious about the ginger. It shouldn’t have, not reasonably, but it had been exciting when he realised that the other man had somehow come to hate him before he had even really done anything deserving of it.

Hux hated his strength. Hux hated his weaknesses. Hux absolutely abhorred the fact that no matter the chain of command, Ren would inevitably always be stronger than the other, simply by laws of nature. Hux had tried to hurt him because of these things, tried to enforce some sort of dominance and control whenever he could get away with it. It had fascinated and amused Ren more than it had hurt him, most of the times anyway, because there was nothing the ginger could do which his Master wouldn’t do or say crueler, with just a touch inside his head. He sort of imagined the look of terror on the General’s face if he ever had gotten to know that by hurting Ren, by trying to control him, bodily, mentally, through manipulation, through violence, he was keeping the other stable, keeping him there and then, keeping the terrors of his mind away. He had never gotten to a point of telling the General before everything changed. He wouldn’t have wanted to tell anyway. He shouldn’t trust Hux just because the other couldn’t be a threat to him. He knew the man’s head, he knew his aspirations and his goals, goals that would inevitably lead to him betraying the Order in one way or another, even if it was for the sake of restoring it, of creating his vision. Ren also knew the fact that the First Order was nothing of what Hux had wanted it to become, and knew the other’s sense of entitlement in his family having founded it in the first place, thus also his sense of responsibility for it.  
  
Many times had he asked his former Master why the Sith saw fit to keep the general around, despite knowing his heart and head were filled to the very brim with desire to betray, desire to take control, and a desperate drive to achieve his own goals. Snoke had said it was easy to control, good to make use of; in the beginning Ren hadn’t believed him. 

As the Supreme Leader he did not, in fact, have time for the other. He was starting to understand the other more, starting to feel like he was becoming more like Hux had always been when in command; there was an awareness that everyone, anyone could betray him. 

By all reasonable measures, he should have killed the man when he took over the role as Supreme Leader. He hadn’t even meant to hear General Hux's disappointment that he was alive, to feel the other desperately trying to control and quench his desires to take the throne for himself, when Snoke had fallen. He should have been merciless. Yet, somehow, he didn’t want to. Hux wasn’t a threat to him, and in the beginning, it had been a very welcome distraction to show the man just how much control he had lost. Then it became… hurtful. He didn’t want to care about Hux, but it was a fault within his nature, always torn between Light and Dark. It hurt to see the other give up the spark of life, to give up his driving forces to create order in the galaxy, it hurt to see the man resign, after so many years of petty rivalry.  
  
He felt relief, as if his mind had held its breath for months, when he detected ideas formings, plans to betray him, to bring him down. It had taken longer than he expected for Hux to set plans in motion. Ren had let him. It had felt good to see the other sort of alive again, especially since Ren had no time to give him attention, if he was to focus on his own goals. Incidentally, their goals didn’t exactly cross with one another horribly, even if he was the only one aware of it. 

“Hux.”  
  
No answer.  
  
 _Hux,_ he tried in his mind.  
  
With a weary sigh he raised his hand to focus his energy in one direction.  
  
“Wake up.” It wasn’t a request.  
  
The traitor’s eyes shot open.  
  
“Ren?”  
  
He smiled, safely hidden beneath his mask where Hux couldn’t read his expressions. The other was so disoriented that for a brief moment, he was clearly still in the past, before everything had fallen apart.  
  
“You’ve gotten yourself shot,” he responded curtly.  
  
“I-.. yes;” the other seemed to recall his pain. It really was no surprise people hadn’t bothered to properly medicate him, likely not wanting to waste too much medicine on a traitor.  
  
At least, Ren was pleased to know that the other was alive, since someone would have Hell to pay for disobeying his orders, had Hux died. Admittedly perhaps it would look strange that he had ordered for Hux to be kept alive, no matter the other’s choices of actions, but it was hardly as if it mattered in the great all. 

“You forgot the title.”  
  
Hux snarled at him, in that disdainful way when the man decided to be displeased before he even knew what exactly to be displeased about.  
  
“Oh? Forgive me, _Lord_ Ren,” the other shot back, somewhat hazily, clearly still out of it.  
  
“Try Supreme Leader,” Ren retorted calmly enough to feel an inkling of pride in himself.  
  
Finally, the other seemed to recall why he was there, easily read even without invading his mind, seeing that Hux was averting his eyes, deciding not to look at Ren, as if that would somehow miraculously keep the Force user out of his mind. 

A silence followed. The other was uncomfortable, and once more his mind was so loud that Ren couldn’t help but to pick up on a thing or two, or ten. It simply boiled down to denial and raging fear; denial was probably one of Hux’s bigger faults. The other should know that Ren was inside his mind, he should know that there would be no tricking him, and yet his mind was adamant on trying. He never gave up, huh.  
  
“What took you so long?” Ren voiced at last, his voice far more menacing than intended, because of the mask.  
  
It brought Hux out of his thoughts, pushed him a little out of order again, and Ren enjoyed being the cause of that. Like this, he could toy with the other, just a bit.  
  
“Pardon?” the other asked, almost irritably, but only as much as he believed himself to be able to get away with.  
  
Not aware that he was smiling, Ren repeated himself; “what took you so long?” 

“I don’t have the faintest clue what you are getting a-..”  
  
“To betray me.”  
  
It was worth the look in the other’s eyes. It was as if a thousand realizations had hit the man all at once, the hurricane whirled, grew even stronger. Ren knew. Ren had always known. It was honestly a surprise that the other hadn’t given it more thought.  
  
“Oh-.. I-.. I didn’t-...mh.” It was a peculiar mixture of weakness and fear, with denial and harsh attempts to keep his same authorial tone of voice as per usual, to not seem as frightened as he clearly was. “There must be a mistake.”  
  
“Don’t lie to me, Hux.”  
  
“You have no proof,” Hux tried.  
  
“I don’t need proof,” Ren reminded him, tapping the side of his helmet lightly with his fingertips. It resulted in the ginger drawing a very sharp breath in discomfort. 

Silence followed until Hux groaned, his entire being feeling like an exposed nerve, “what’s the point of me telling you if you already know everything?!” Ren… didn’t have a good answer to that, at least not an answer that wouldn’t be embarrassingly somehow admitting to wanting to hear the other’s voice, or something like that, he wasn’t sure himself.  
  
Silence again. As much as Ren wanted to linger, he didn’t have as much time to spare as he would have wanted.

“General Hux,” he began, using the voice of authority he had learnt, in all honesty probably from the man opposite of him, a voice that still felt a bit alien to him, but he supposed he would get used to it. “You are relieved of your duties.”  
  
The other snapped his head towards him, it looked as if Hux had a thousand things to say, a thousand words on the tip of his tongue, but couldn’t voice a single one. Ren could feel him even stronger now. He could feel Hux frantically searching. Jarringly enough, the other seemed to be searching in the history of the two of them, for anything that could make him change Ren’s mind, as if the uncomfortable close proximity the two had ended up with, in a strange, unnamed, relationship, could save the other.  
  
Ren let him ponder, but it didn’t last long. What remained was only fear of death, an awareness that he had outlived his welcome. Perhaps even a stray thought or two of sheer wonder how Ren hadn’t killed him until this point. Hux seemed absolutely certain that Ren had come to kill him himself, which made the next words that came from him all the more gratifying to shake the other with.  
  
“Rest up. I want you off this ship _before_ it returns to Exegol.”  
  
This time Hux couldn’t even muster false politeness. “What?” Hux stared at him in disbelief, and Ren could feel an all familiar hatred towards the upper hand his helmet gave him, when Hux couldn’t read his face. 

“Why? You hate me,” Hux continued, warily, still in shock.  
  
“Yes,” Ren confirmed, that was probably still true.  
  
He-... yes, he might as well.  
  
The helmet made a few noises as he removed it, and placed it on the small table beside the bed. Over the last few years he had gone from hating Hux’s relief when he removed his helmet to feel strangely enticed by how much even such a small thing affected the other. 

Hux was looking at him expectantly, fear of death still clogging up the air around them, almost making it hard to breathe. The man was searching his eyes for insincerity, for tricks. It seemed the other was practically expecting to be thrown out into space, for a slow painful death.  
  
“I hardly believe I should have to repeat myself, Hux. You will leave this ship before it returns to Exegol, if I find you there I-... I might off you myself.” That did not sound as convincing as he would have wanted it to. 

“-... will I be permitted a spacecraft?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Disbelief almost slapped him in the face.  
  
“I don’t believe you,” Hux retorted, with a snort, but still seemed fairly shaken. Good riddance.  
  
“Then don’t. Your orders are the same,” Ren retorted in return, fairly calm.  
  
He had been disconcertingly calm ever since he found his answer in what to do. There was a calm in knowing the terrible situation he was in. Ren had never been fond of uncertainty, but now he was certain.  
  
“Why?”  
  
It was a simple question, probably phrased instead of a hundred. Ren didn’t mean to continuously keep the other in the dark, but he hadn’t been able to confide in the other, it had been too risky. Horrifyingly enough, he had wanted to.  
  
“I’ll be leaving soon.”

After a bit of thought, Hux did look at him and spoke up, “going after the girl again?” His voice was filled to the very brim with disapproval.  
  
Ren glanced at him, almost wearily. He had already decided to tell the other the truth, but things were often more difficult in practice than they seemed in theory.  
  
“... Yes. I need her.”  
  
“You’ve failed killing her all the other times, what in the name of the Stars would make this different?” Hux’s voice was almost returned to normal, as if there was nothing else he could do to not break down in fear.  
  
“I’m not going to kill her. I’m going to turn her to the dark side, she’s needed.”  
  
“Right, because that has worked so well thus far.”  
  
“She’s at a breaking point, I can tell.”  
  
“Oh, really, how wonderful,” Hux didn’t sound the slightest bit convinced. Ren hated how his grip on the sheets below his hand tensed, he hadn’t even known that he was holding onto something with the hand resting on the bed.  
  
Seeing the fact that Hux wasn’t asking, he might as well tell. “She’s the Emperor’s granddaughter, she holds the same powers.”  
  
That did achieve another look in the other’s face as if he had been slapped by an invisible force, before realization hit in. He still wasn’t speaking.  
  
“I-... won’t likely be welcome if I return here,” he continued, rather wearily. Hux didn’t seem to follow.  
  
“I will kill him. I mean-... I will kill the Emperor,” he finally concluded, letting out a heavy breath.  
  
“You-... what? Didn’t you say he’s insanely powerful?”  
  
“Yes, he’s more powerful than me, and more powerful than you could imagine.”  
  
“Why, wasn’t he giving you his fleet, and his throne?” Hux didn’t even seem to believe those words himself.  
  
“It’s not my fleet, it’s his fleet,” Ren started, and sighed, then continued, “the Generals aren’t mine either, most follow him, especially those who survived the old war.”  
  
“I see-...” Hux said, almost wearily this time, as if he had lost the ability to muster disdain. “What makes you think you can kill him?”  
  
“That’s why I need the girl, Hux. We can do it together.”  
  
“You sound awfully convinced of that.”  
  
“I have no choice.”  
  
Silence followed again, and Hux looked away. His mind projected something akin to a headache from thinking far too much, and experiencing far too much distress and confusion all in one.  
  
“I want to sleep. Leave me,” Hux all but ordered him. It seemed, finally, there were no use for pretenses.  
  
Ren wasn’t finished, they hadn’t come to the understanding that he wanted to achieve yet.  
“I never disapproved of your Order,” he started, clearly getting the man’s attention immediately. So, he continued, “I don’t think your ideas are faulty, and I don’t think your Order would have failed, or been bad for the galaxy, but as it seems, this is not your Order, or mine for the matter.”  
  
“I’m going to kill him, Hux, and with killing him I’ll end the Sith’s oppression of all that is living. I’ll end the jedi. I’ll end the First Order. All these old things shall die, and I will take his throne to form a new Order for the Galaxy.”  
  
At last, Hux snapped, seemingly able to find some of the words that had been inside him for so long. “Do you even have the slightest inkling of an idea how to rule? Do you know anything about how to keep an Empire? You haven’t shown the slightest bit of capability for it. You’ve ruined the First Order, you blasted failure! It is your failure!”  
  
Ren smiled warily, “that’s not exactly true, Emperor Palpatine controlled Snoke, and this has been bigger than us all along.” The words didn’t seem the slightest bit comforting ot the other.  
  
“Then how will you manage your new Order of the Galaxy? How will you achieve all of these things? Do you even have the slightest idea of what to do to build an Empire?”  
  
Ren drew a sharp breath that wasn’t quite so menacing without the mask, “I need the girl.”  
  
“You’re not answering!” Hux demanded, probably louder than he intended.  
  
“No, I don’t!” He finally snapped at the other, “... but you do.”  
  
“I fail to see the relevance of that, seeing that if, and I mean only if I live through this, which I sincerely doubt, I will leave,” Hux responded dryly, clearly not getting the meaning of his words.  
  
“I will find you,” Ren responded, after a brief break, almost whispering, “after everything is done, I will find you again, so you better stay alive.”  
  
Hux looked… uncertain. “Is that a threat?”  
  
“No.” His response was simple, it made the other look a little more relaxed, but his mind was still frantically trying to understand Ren, projecting a lot of annoyance at Ren’s ‘unnecessarily enigmatic’ way of speaking. There was another spark somewhere, one that was held down by layers of disbelief, but it seemed the right one, so Ren nudged it inside Hux’s mind, getting a groan in return when the other realised that he was inside his head. Ren decided to encourage him further.  
  
“I need you alive, I need your knowledge and skill to make this work, when everything is over.” 

Ren probably looked startled, almost as if his words punched him in his own face, in finally admitting that he needed Hux to rule with him, that he would allow Hux to achieve his goals, that he wanted someone like Hux to set everything wrong with the Galaxy right again, that he believed the other could do it.  
  
“Don’t-...” Hux began, practically interrupting him. “Don’t… just don’t speak like that before I have proof that I won’t be shot to debree the second I leave this ship.” His voice was almost pleading, but not quite, Hux never really let himself plead.  
  


Hope. Perhaps that single emotion wasn’t as terrifying as Ren had always found it. The hope that was forming inside the ex-General wasn’t frightening, it was a comfortable warmth, making the eye of the hurricane even more welcoming a place.  
  
“Please, just leave me.” Even then Hux wasn’t truly pleading.  
  
Ren wanted to linger. He couldn’t, there was no time, and he had already wasted enough. Thus, he got up and picked up his helmet, glancing at the bedridden man once more before he put it on again. “Remember, _before_ the ship reaches Exegol.”  
  
“Yes, I heard you the first time,” Hux snapped, almost half-heartedly.  
  
 _Good,_ Ren responded through the Force, because he was already halfway out the door, and the sound of the doors opening might have overruled his shaky voice.  
  
In ways, Hux was rather terrifying, despite always having been the weaker of the two, or maybe they were simply weak in different ways. It was terrifying to know that he already missed the other’s presence, the second he cut their connection off. It was terrifying to know that he was aching to return to the man. It was terrifying knowing that he might not.

**Author's Note:**

> \--- To be continued in the next work ---


End file.
